Share via

When Sir Max Joseph gave him the job of running Norfolk Capital Hotels in 1980, Peter Eyles asked why he’d been chosen. “Because you couldn’t make more of a mess of it than the previous guy,” came the industrialist’s terse reply.

More than three decades later, Mr Eyles — one of the hospitality industry’s most colourful characters — is to call time on his career after deciding to review the future of Cross Oak Inns, his Home Counties gastropub business, and consider a possible sale for up to £5 million.